Growing cities, and growing problems

As outlying sagebrush was quickly devoured by starter homes and chain stores, Las Vegas began grappling with the kinds of problems that long have vexed California: Crowded classrooms. Packed freeways. Not enough water. Immigrants who struggle to learn English. Rising poverty.

Similar issues have bedeviled the areas around Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City and Albuquerque. By 2040, Las Vegas and its four brethren will grow by nearly 12.7 million people.

While a booming population is turning the Intermountain West into an economic force and political battleground, a Brookings Institution report released today suggests that without help from the federal government, its major cities are headed for trouble.

“These places are going to be overwhelmed if they’re left to go it alone,” said Mark Muro, policy director of the nonpartisan think tank’s Metropolitan Policy Program.

Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah -- a region the study dubbed the “new American Heartland” -- was the least developed part of the U.S. in 1950. There isn’t even an interstate linking Las Vegas and Phoenix because they were mere blips when the nation’s highway system was mapped out.

But from 2000 to 2007, Nevada, Arizona and Utah boasted the nation’s top three population growth rates; the Las Vegas area alone jumped 31%, to more than 2 million people.

Meanwhile, the arid region is growing thirstier, the report said, and climate change could further scorch it; its middle class is dwindling more quickly than in other regions; and its cities have about 1 million illegal immigrants, half of them in Arizona.

Solutions, the report said, lie in the Western states working more closely with Washington on transportation, water, energy and immigration -- much as Atlanta, Miami and Dallas were shaped by federal policies in their growth spurts.

But there are roadblocks, including the economic slump.

Proposals that require money “may be difficult to pass in today’s budget environment,” said Alan Viard, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. “Large federal deficits will make many members of Congress wary of creating or expanding such programs.”

And Washington, Muro said, historically has taken a hands-off approach with the West. “To Washington, this is still a region of forest fires and Endangered Species Act issues and, maybe, energy,” he said.

Western Governors’ Assn. Chairman Jon M. Huntsman Jr., Utah’s Republican governor, said: “I don’t know if I’d call it neglect,” but federal officials “have been impervious to the growth here over the last generation.”

Officials across the region need to band together on common problems, he said, and press for federal officials to shift their focus.

Greater Las Vegas, which includes Clark County, neighboring Nye County and Mohave County, Ariz., has experienced the fastest boom in the area the report studied.

In the past, said Tracy Bower of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, local funding seemed to be the best approach when, for example, the area needed a beltway.

“It’s been a way to deliver things when they’re needed so quickly,” Bower said.

But the souring economy has made it more difficult for Nevada to pay its own way. Gambling revenue has plummeted, and the state unemployment rate is higher than the national average. The report identified education funding and job creation in “knowledge cluster” fields -- including financial services, information technology and healthcare -- as particularly pressing needs.

Of the five areas studied, Las Vegas has the largest percentage of people struggling with English. Nearly a fifth of residents are foreign-born, a higher percentage than in the other areas.

It also has the smallest fraction of residents with a high school diploma, and with graduate or professional degrees -- 19.2%, compared with 27.2% nationwide. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has the weakest research capacity of its peers in the Intermountain West, the report said, and state budget cuts are expected to hit hard.

“We’ve been scrambling to keep up with the growth,” said Neal Smatresk, the university’s provost. “We don’t want a lack of federal funding and state support to take the wind out of our sails.”

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ashley.powers@latimes.com